Harbinger
by Precept
Summary: Sovereign has been destroyed, but the Reapers remain. Now, Shepard must join with the darkest of allies to avert the apocalypse, even if it costs him his life. But, even if he survives against all odds, will Shepard still be the man he once was? Alone, with no one to turn to, can Shepard survive the onslaught of Harbinger - and the machinations of the ruthless Illusive Man? Sequel.
1. The Story So Far

**The story so far...**

_One month after the devastating geth attack on the Citadel, the galactic community struggles to rebuild._

_During the battle, the Systems Alliance fleet made a tremendous sacrifice to save the Citadel Council and that valiant effort earned humanity membership in the interstellar governing body. Now, the Council is forced to respond to evidence that the Reapers - enormous machines that eradicate all organic civilization every fifty thousand years - have returned._

_To quell the rumors, the Council has sent Commander John Shepard, the first human Spectre, and the multi-species crew of the starship _Normandy_ to wipe out the last pockets of geth resistance. Officially, the Council blames the invasion on the geth and their leader, a rogue Spectre - Saren Arterius. For most of the galaxy, the war has been won._

_But for those who know the truth, the final battle is just beginning..._

* * *

Note: It is highly recommended that you read the preceding stories - Spectre and In the Interim - first.


	2. Prologue

**Prologue**

_Interesting_, the man thought, _most interesting._

He was smart enough to know that he didn't know everything. Even with his network of agents, associates and accomplices, there was much that transpired before it  
was noticed. He was a patient man, however, and he knew that all the knowledge of the galaxy would, given time, filter back to him.

And knowledge, after all, was power.

"Shepard did everything right," the Illusive Man's most trusted lieutenant was saying, "More than we could've hoped for. Saving the Citadel, even saving the Council. Humanity has the trust of the entire galaxy..."

She turned to face him, her exquisite, sculpted looks and raven dark hair illuminated by the light of a dying star.

"And still it's not enough."

"Our sacrifices have earned the Council's gratitude," the Illusive Man replied, and he nodded, "But Shepard remains our best hope."

"But they're sending him to fight Geth. Geth! We both know they're not the real threat. The Reapers are still out there."

The man took a drag from his cigarette, exhaled the smoke. In the darkness, among the stars, it was almost like a nebula. "And it's up to us to stop them."

"The Council will never trust us, they'll never accept our help. Even after everything we've accomplished. But Shepard..." She turned to face an image that the  
Illusive Man had pulled up - the same handsome visage that had been plastered across hundreds of worlds, space stations and news feeds. "They'll follow him. He's a hero, a bloody icon. But he's just one man. If we lose Shepard, humanity might well follow."

And that, to both of the people in the sanctum, to the two people who stood in the light of a dying sun, was completely unacceptable.

The man ground his cigarette to ash and turned his stern, electric blue gaze towards his lieutenant. "Then see to it that we _don't_ lose him."


	3. PART I: Regenesis

**HARBINGER**

**PART I**

**REGENESIS**

_"In spite of its function as a reservoir of human darkness - or perhaps because of this - the shadow is the seat of creativity." - Carl Jung_


	4. Chapter I: Shepard

**Chapter I - Shepard**

The blinding light was not easy on John Shepard's eyes.

Shepard blinked repeatedly, attempting to clear the momentary blindness and give his eyes time to adjust to the bright glare. It felt like he was staring into a sun. Shepard knew his body inside and out, and it was taking him a while to bring the sterile, white room into clarity. His whole body felt sore, stiff, like he was waking up from a long, deep sleep.

Without thinking, Shepard swung his legs over the side of the surgical bed he found himself on and almost fell. His legs felt weak, shaky. For a moment, the room swam in and out of focus.

Had he been asleep? And if so, for how long? Shepard could already tell that this wasn't the _Normandy_, his personal warship. Just where was he? It looked like a medical facility but it was too bright... too perfect.

_Fire, heat, an explosion. Fear, horror, asphyxiation._

The memories vanished as quickly as they had appeared. There must have been a battle, Shepard thought, and he must have been injured. It would, after all, explain where he had ended up. The room resembled an operating theatre, with all of its white sterility; they must have been operating on him. It would explain how groggy he felt. But why? Had he been that badly injured?

Why couldn't he remember it?

But this didn't look like an Alliance facility, Shepard couldn't see the familiar insignia. In fact, there was nothing Shepard could use to identify anything about where he was. There was no way of telling if he was planetbound or starside. Shepard called out for the medical staff, and was suddenly aware of just how groggy his voice sounded... just how long had he been out for?

And his crew, where were they? Tali should be-

"Shepard, get up. Get moving, time is of the essence."

The woman's voice was clipped, cold. She was doing her best to sound warm and personable, but it was all too clear that it wasn't something she was used to. Her accented English was strange - Australian, if Shepard was able to place it correctly, but that allowed Shepard to establish that it was a human facility. And, by the fact that she was attempting to order him around, Shepard supposed she was the Chief Medical Officer.

"Your bedside manner could use a little work," Shepard replied to the empty room. His face felt numb.

"That is irrelevant at this moment, Shepard. There is a cabinet on the far side of the room. Get to it."

Shepard did so. There was no point in arguing and little point in ignoring the voice. He pulled the cabinet open, expecting to find medical supplies and medi-gel, and found what might as well have been the contents of an Alliance arms locker - of his arms locker, specifically - the majority of which was taken up by his old equipment, it seemed. He reached for the combat hardsuit, reassured by its familiar presence, before he caught himself.

Shepard knew his combat hardsuit inside and out, and this wasn't it. It was similar; the colours were right, the striking red slash down one arm was there, but this suit was bigger, heavier, more armoured. It seemed more advanced, as odd as the thought seemed to Shepard. A pistol, of a make and model that Shepard did not recognise, sat with it.

Shepard knew one thing: this wasn't his equipment.

As a professional soldier in the service of the Systems Alliance, and as the first Human Spectre, there were very few people who had more experience in the art of killing than Shepard. He knew many weapons inside and out - be they human or alien. Yet, this combat suit and sidearm were foreign to him. The fact that they had been left here, for him to find, was equally suspicious. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to make convincing imitations.

And none of that boded well.

Had he been abducted? Was this some sort of training exercise? Why couldn't he remember how he had gotten here, to a place that was seeming to be increasingly hostile with every passing second. He remembered the brief disorientation, his groggy sounding voice, his weak legs and stiff muscles - had they drugged him?

It seemed increasingly likely. But that didn't answer the key question: why? They obviously didn't want him dead.

_Not yet, anyway_, Shepard thought, expression grim.

Still, the female voice obviously expected Shepard to arm himself and he doubted that they would have gone to all this effort to kill him with an exploding pistol.

So, Shepard armed himself and double-timed his way into the hardsuit. It fit like a glove, just like his normal suit, the suit that had protected him across a hundred battles on a dozen worlds. If this was a test, then at least he had a weapon. If he was a prisoner, then he would perform the first duty required of one - to escape.

The woman's voice returned, "Shepard, this facility is under attack by an unknown party. They are approaching your position. They will breach the door and kill you on sight. Get to cover."

"Who are you?"

"That should not be your concern at the moment, Shepard." A slight pause. "They have reached the doors."

As if to emphasise the woman's point, something heavy, or with a considerable amount of force behind it, slammed against the heavy sliding doors on one side of the room. Shepard knelt down behind an operating table and levelled his weapon towards the door. His vision swam in and out of focus and Shepard found himself gasping for breath - like he was drowning.

The blast doors slid open and something that Shepard had never seen before stepped over the threshold.

It was vaguely skeletal, like an angular approximation of a human skeleton rendered in white metals and plastic. It was obviously a machine, with its two red sensors on its faceplate, mounted one atop the other. But its movements were jerky and mechanical, head scanning left to right in search of targets. The only machines Shepard had fought in the past had moved with an alien grace - sinuous, like a cobra. This wasn't a Geth. It was undoubtedly a machine, but it lacked the fluid, deadly grace of the quarian-designed killing machines that he had fought before. Hell, that he had stopped from exterminating all life in the galaxy.

Its red sensors set on Shepard and the machine issued what Shepard supposed was a warning tone.

Regardless of who designed it, the synthetic was approaching with a pistol held high. It was hostile.

No matter. Shepard took aim and fired.

Shepard's first shot went wide and blasted a monitor into pieces. He never would have missed that shot! Shepard frowned, shocked and swearing, and realised that it wasn't a question of 'if' he had been drugged any more. His reflexes, usually perfect and precise, were shot to hell.

Recovering his aim, Shepard fired again.

This time, he hit his mark. The synthetic's red optical sensors were blasted free of its cranial structure. It fell to the deck in a pile of sparking wreckage.

Interestingly, it seemed to lack any redundant systems or fail-safes. As Shepard stepped over for a closer look, the machine stayed still and lifeless.

"Shepard, we don't have a lot of time. Someone has hacked our security mechs and is attempting to kill you. I'll-" Static began to overtake the communications line and the woman's Australian accent was lost in white noise.

And that was that. Shepard waited for five seconds but there was nothing but static. He was alone.

But that was fine. As an Alliance war hero, a trained N7 operative and as the first human Spectre, being alone and surrounded by hostiles just meant that Shepard was in his element. After all, all he had to do was escape a facility that was like nothing he had ever seen before in an unknown location, dodge an army of hacked security mechs of an unknown model and make, and trust in the voice of an unknown woman who had not identified herself and almost certainly had an ulterior motive. That, Shepard supposed, was a lot of unknowns. But there was also one more: where was his crew?

Shepard policed the weapon from the downed mech, clipped the handgun to a hardpoint on his combat suit. He stepped out of the medical bay, scanned his pistol left and right, but found nothing but smoke, fire and death. As Commander Shepard lurched into action, he felt that old fire returning, like his body was finally beginning to wake up. By the second hallway, he was moving at a good pace. By the third, he had gunned down three more security mechs and was taking stairs two at a time.

His mission was simple: find that woman and escape.

And only God would be able to help anyone who got in his way.


	5. Chapter II: Impetus

**Chapter II - Impetus**

Shepard moved.

Shepard hunkered his way through more sterile corridors, although their white sheen had been dulled by carbon scorching from fire and from the many blasted craters of mass accelerator fire. Just as the Geth had been on Eden Prime, when they had set about butchering the inhabitants of an idyllic garden world, these unknown synthetics were just as brutally efficient here. With the exception of the mysterious female voice, Shepard had encountered no one else. No one except the dead.

But even the corpses provided no clue as to where he was or who all these dead people were.

The mysterious woman continuously urged Shepard onwards, towards the shuttle bays. With her assistance, he had been able to navigate the sterile labyrinth and deal with any synthetics that he happened to cross paths with - wherever she was, she had the capability to monitor both his movements and the whereabouts of each hacked mech. Her assistance wasn't omnipresent, however - her line would devolve into static and she would have to keep moving, ostensibly to evade any mech patrols. It didn't reassure Shepard and an old familiar feeling, like ants across his scalp, made him wonder if there was something going on behind the scenes, as if this was all pantomime and he was being played.

If that was the case, then Shepard resolved to take it out of somebody's hide.

And yet, when that voice vanished, Shepard was painfully aware of just how alone he was.

The sound of gunfire ahead of him, however, caused Shepard to quicken his pace.

Around the corner, a dark-skinned man was engaged in a gunfight with a trio of security mechs. The man had found cover from the skeletal attackers, making use of some sort of hastily erected barricade of chairs and tables, and was exchanging fire with them. While the combatants were separated by a chasm - it looked like a walkway had been deliberately destroyed - the man couldn't escape without exposing himself to fire. He was pinned down.

Shepard stepped into the middle of the shoot-out, knowing that his kinetic barriers would hold. His gun barked one, twice, three times, and three security mechs fell with smoking holes in their cranial casings.

For the briefest of moments, the man's dark eyes met Shepard's own as he walked over to him. Shock openly rippled over his facial features. "Shepard?! What the hell?! What are you doing here? I thought you were still a work in progress!"

"I don't know," Shepard replied as he settled behind the barricade, "I was hoping you could tell me. Who are you?"

"Jacob Taylor. I'm sorry, I forgot this is all new to you. I've been stationed here for-"

The sharp metal on metal ping of a gunshot announced the arrival of another group of mechs. Jacob ducked his head lower, swearing.

"Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda's got you running around."

"Miranda?"

"Yeah, she's the one who woke you up. I'll fill you in, but we've got to get to the shuttle first!"

"Not without my crew!"

"They're not here, Shepard. Listen, once we're not getting shot at by our own mechs, I'll sit down and play Twenty Questions with you all day. Until then, we're low on thermal clips and surrounded by hostiles. I'll follow your lead, Shepard."

Something about Jacob's words was unfamiliar - the mention of a 'thermal clip'. Shepard pushed it from his mind. He could investigate later. "Understood," Shepard replied, "But once we're on the shuttle, I'm going to ask you some questions. If I get an answer I don't like, then I'll be putting you out the airlock. Understood? And for now, you'll be taking point."

"Sure thing, Commander." A momentary grimace flickered across Jacob's face and, in that moment, Shepard knew he was going to get an answer he wasn't going to like.

* * *

As the pair continued through the facility, Shepard found that Jacob was a capable soldier.

Shepard couldn't place his uniform, however, which was worrying. The black and white colour scheme was so generic that it could've stood for two dozen outfits across half a dozen sectors. He was a good shot and he knew how to operate in a hostile environment, indicating that he was a professional of some sort. What complicated things was that Jacob's suit of armour was sleek, nothing like the bulky hardsuit Shepard favoured, without logo or symbol. It was the sort of thing that special operatives wore to hide their silhouette and make themselves difficult to recognise in the field. It wasn't something that a private military contractor or a mercenary group would typically have access to. That suit was cutting-edge Alliance tech.

And given that this wasn't an Alliance facility, Shepard's jaw tightened. The list of organisations that could possibly acquire such a set of armour was minuscule. One name burned bright and terrible in Shepard's mind, and he had to ensure that his pistol didn't waver closer and closer to the centre of Jacob's back when he thought of it.

A new voice, this one raspy and unfamiliar, crackled over the frequency that the one Jacob had called Miranda had been using. "Anyone on this frequency? Anyone still alive out there? Anybody? Hello?"

"Wilson," Jacob replied, giving Shepard a hand signal implying that he knew the voice and that the situation was nominal. "This is Jacob. I've got Shepard with me. We just took out a bunch of mechs over in D-Wing. What's your status?"

"Shepard's alive?" Wilson gasped, "How the hell? Never mind. Look, you need to get him out of there. Let's see if I can find you a safe route. Okay, there should a service duct to your right. That'll lead you directly to the network control room. I'll meet you there."

"Roger that, Wilson," Jacob replied, "We're on our way. Stay on this frequency."

Shepard followed Jacob into one of the service ducts. It was a cramped space, barely wide enough for his armoured shoulders to fit. There certainly wasn't space to draw a weapon. Shepard knew that if a mech were to fire down the duct, from either direction, both he and Jacob would be dead. However, there was nowhere to go but onwards - he had to follow Jacob in a slow crawl, arm over arm, shuffling towards the network control room. Still, it gave him time to ask questions.

"I have to say, Taylor, that I'm getting tired of being led around like this."

"I know, Shepard," Jacob responded, "And I'm sorry. I really am."

"You can start your apology by giving me some answers."

"Okay, look. We're on a deep-space installation, one designed specifically for a certain project, one we called Lazarus. I suppose our boss has always had a bit of a thing for literary references. I'm just the head of security, Commander, you'd best wait to hear about things from Miranda Lawson."

"Who is this Miranda anyway?"

"She's the ranking officer aboard this station. She is... _was_ the one in charge of Project Lazarus. Trust me, Shepard, it'll be better if you hear everything from her. There's a lot you need to know."

"Fine. At least tell me about my squad then, about the _Normandy_. Why am I the only one here?"

Jacob didn't reply, the only sound being the occasional grunt of exertion and the sound of armour plate scuffing along metal.

"Taylor?"

"Sorry, Commander," Jacob replied, shoving open the service duct with his head and shoulder. "But I'm staying silent on that one. I'm just remembering what you said about airlocks."

* * *

Wilson had led them straight and true. The service duct opened into a dark room, bathed in the ominous red glow of emergency lighting. The network control room was a mess of angular server boxes with cables and wires strewn across the floor like black serpents. Someone had been in the middle of some sort of work when the shooting started, it seemed.

A voice called out from behind a large server unit. The rasp in the voice made it clear that it was Wilson. "Jacob! Shepard! Down here! The bastards got me in the leg!"

Jacob made his way over to Wilson, crouching down behind the server unit. Shepard took a few moments more to check the area for hostiles, found nothing. There weren't even any destroyed mechs in the room, or impact craters along the walls or server hardware. Although perhaps, Shepard figured, that was a trick of the dim lighting.

Something here was wrong, more so than the rest of the installation.

"Shepard?" Jacob called out, "Could you grab me some medi-gel? It should be in a medical station on the far wall. You're lucky, Wilson, it's just a grazing blow. With some medi-gel, we'll be able to get you out of here."

Shepard brought the canister of medi-gel over, passed it along to Jacob. Wilson was an unremarkable looking man, bald, wearing loose fatigues that matched Jacob's armour in colour and simplistic lack of ornamentation. As Jacob worked on Wilson's leg, he asked: "What made you come down here anyway?"

Wilson shrugged. "I thought maybe I could shut down the security mechs from the central network hub. But whoever did this fried the whole system. Completely irreversible."

"You work in the bio wing," Jacob replied, "With Lawson. It's a bit of a risk to come all the way over here, isn't it?"

"Weren't you listening?!" Wilson positively spat, "I came here to try and fix this! Besides, I was shot!" He gestured emphatically to his bloody leg. "How do you explain that?!"

"Easy, Wilson," Jacob replied, "We're all friends here. Do you know what happened to Miranda?" That comment about friends felt like it was directed to Shepard as much as it was to the surly technician.

"Forget about Miranda," Wilson grunted, gritting his teeth as Jacob injected medi-gel into the wound on his thigh. "She was over in D-wing. If you guys didn't see her, she's probably dead. That place was swarming with mechs. There's no way she survived."

"We made it out," Shepard put in. He wasn't about to let his best shot at answers slip through his fingers on the word of a glorified technician or lab assistant, whatever Wilson was. His attitude was beyond belligerent, even with a gunshot wound. "She could still be alive."

"And so what?" Wilson scowled. "Even if she did survive, why's she no longer in contact with us? Why haven't we heard from her since this started? She's either dead, or she's a traitor. All the other command staff are dead. Pretty convenient that she's still alive."

Jacob frowned. "The pain's making you paranoid, Wilson. This project was Miranda's baby - she put two years of her life into this thing. There's no reason she would sabotage it now, not with Shepard- Well, not with Shepard here."

"She woke me up just before this attack started," Shepard said. "Seems counter-productive to do something like if she wanted to kill me."

"Okay, maybe she's not a traitor," Wilson replied slowly. He pushed himself to a standing position, and got ready to move out. He was limping. Medi-gel could only do so much - it might prevent him from bleeding out and it might dull the pain but, even so, moving like he was, Wilson was going to be dead weight, especially if they ran into any more security mechs.

"But that doesn't change the facts," Wilson continued, "We're here, she's not. We need to save ourselves."

Shepard shook his head. "I need answers. And, given what I'm information I've gotten out of you two so far, she's the best chance I have. You two can head on to the shuttles, but I'll be heading back to find Lawson. Don't bother waiting up for me."

Jacob shut his eyes. He sighed. "Shepard, if I tell you who we both work for - who everyone on this station works for - will you agree to finally trust me?"

Wilson's face lit up with incredulous shock. "Jacob, what are you- This really isn't the time!"

"Our team cohesion is at rock bottom, Wilson," Jacob replied, with a tone of voice that Shepard identified as military. Whoever this Jacob was, and as friendly as he seemed, he came from a background where he was used to giving orders. More than any station security officer was, at any rate. "We're not going to get out of here if he thinks we're not on the level. You've read his file."

"Yeah, I have. And that's why I know you're making one hell of a mistake by even thinking about this!"

Jacob moved to stand in front of Shepard. His face was calm but his jaw was tight. "I'll accept full responsibility."

"Fine," Wilson replied, limping over to the doorway. "If you want to piss off the boss, it's your ass, Jacob. I'll keep an eye out for mechs."

The air was suddenly thick with palpable tension. Jacob looked like he was ready to go for his gun, and Shepard's hand lowered down to his own weapon in response. Jacob noticed.

"I need you to put your weapon on the floor, Shepard" Jacob said, slowly, calmly, "And then take a step backwards."

"Like hell. What's going on here?"

"Commander, trust me. I was with the Alliance for five years. You want answers, I get that, and I want to give them to you - but I need to make sure that none of us-" A pointed look to Wilson, "-Will do anything we regret."

Shepard nodded. He drew his handgun, checked the safety and then set it down. He took a step back and Jacob took a step forward, keeping himself between Shepard and his weapon. Behind Jacob, Wilson just shook his head and muttered something dark.

Jacob seemed to need a moment to make his jaw work. Finally, he said: "Commander, the Lazarus Project... this whole space station and everyone on it... was funded and built by Cerberus."


	6. Chapter III: Revulsion

**Part III - Revulsion**

Shepard was on Jacob in an instant, swinging his fists.

Shepard felt strong - stronger than he had ever been - and it was this new strength that allowed him to pin Jacob against the wall and bury him under a flurry of blows. All he could hear was the screams of his fellow men and women, Alliance soldiers all, dying on Akuze at the hands of a Cerberus experiment, melting under hideous Thresher acid, their skin running like water and hissing where it hit the ground. All he could see was Admiral Kahoku's grave, victim of a Cerberus conspiracy, discredited and executed. All he could feel was fear and rage, the combination of which had filled his mind like a heady, intoxicating cocktail.

Jacob went to kick Shepard's legs out from under him, but Shepard hefted his opponent by the collar of his combat suit and slammed him up against the bulkhead with teeth-rattling force. Jacob's armor was soft and pliant, nothing like the hard plating of Shepard's own combat suit, and Shepard's adrenaline borne strength allowed him to piston a fist squarely into Jacob's diaphragm. The air _whoofed_ out of his opponent's lungs and the Cerberus soldier bent over, hands over his abdomen, wheezing for breath.

Sparing an acidic glance for Wilson, who hadn't moved away from the doorway in light of his sudden attack, Shepard took up Jacob's pistol from where it had fallen and made his way back over to the dark-skinned Cerberus soldier. Shepard slammed him up against the bulkhead for a third time and pressed his weapon to Jacob's head.

"Answers," Shepard seethed, "_Now._"

"Shepard, please. You need to understand that-"

Shepard twisted the barrel of the pistol against Jacob's temple, hard enough to draw blood.

Jacob grunted, grimacing. "Commander-"

"Shut up, Taylor, or I swear to God I'll blow your brains out all over this bulkhead! Where's my crew?"

"I don't know," Jacob replied, jaw clenched, fighting against the pain. Blood ran down his cheek. "Most of them have moved on, left the Alliance, gone home."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Shepard, you and your ship were attacked, okay!? We hauled you out of the wreck, spent a lot of good money to fix you up! It was so bad that the Alliance declared you killed in action!"

_Bullshit._

"How convenient for Cerberus," Shepard growled, "You goddamn vultures!"

"I didn't make that decision!" Jacob shouted. His words came quick, frantic. "We had no choice! You're the best soldier in the Alliance, we need you! Look, if I was you, I'd probably do the same thing - but right now, we have to work together or we are not getting off this station! I thought you deserved to know what's what! To get us all on the same page! Look, once we're out of here, I'll take you to the boss - our leader, the one who organised all this! After that, you can go wherever you like - no one will stop you!"

Shepard's finger wavered on the trigger. He had killed dozens of Cerberus personnel. He had shot them, beaten them. On Patajiri, he had yanked the breathing mask from the face of one Ceberus agent, just to watch them asphyxiate in a poisonous atmosphere. What was one more?

Unknowingly, however, Jacob had saved himself - by offering up a more tempting target. Shepard lowered his weapon, took a step backwards, let Jacob catch his breath. It would be one thing to kill Jacob, it would be another to kill the leader of Cerberus, to cut the monster's head off in one stroke. Whoever was leading Cerberus, they were responsible for everything - Akuze, Kahoku, this. Admiral Kahoku had referred to them as an 'illusive man' within the Systems Alliance. Whoever they were, Shepard had one hell of a ledger to settle with them.

"Fine," Shepard growled. "You'll live. Get up. The two of you will go in front, I'm not putting my back to either of you. We'll see what your boss has to say, Taylor, and you better hope it's worth something."

Jacob coughed. "What about Miranda?"

"I don't care about her," Shepard replied. "If she makes it to the shuttle, good. If she's dead, even better. Get moving."

* * *

It wasn't far to the shuttle bay from the network control room. Luckily, given the recent confrontation between Shepard and Jacob and the problems posed by Wilson's injured leg, there were not many drones between them and their destination either. Shepard kept Jacob in the lead position, with Wilson between him and the Cerberus operative. That way, if Jacob wanted to try something, he would have to shoot past his own man.

And Shepard, on the other hand, could just shoot both of them.

However, when they entered the shuttle bay, a trio of security mechs were waiting to meet them. The skeletal machines turned in their direction and opened fire immediately, but their first volley missed their mark and Shepard, Jacob and Wilson found cover.

Shepard was just about to bark out orders, to tell Jacob to move up and for Wilson to keep his head down, when Jacob leaned out from his position, one arm outstretched. The very air seemed to warp and shift around Jacob's hand, like it was meeting some sort of invisible field. Shepard had seen this before. On the _Normandy_, a number of his crew had exhibited a similar ability.

Jacob Taylor was a biotic.

With a quick, clipped movement of his arm, Jacob sent the first of the three security mechs into the air, then brought it back down to the deck with terrific force, shattering the machine into a dozen fragments.

"Gravity's one mean motherfucker, huh?" Jacob snapped over at Shepard. That display hadn't just been just to destroy the machine, it was telling Shepard something as well. Don't mess with me.

Shepard sighted in on the second mech, and dropped it with a trio of shots to its chest. Its power cell sparked and went up in a small detonation, blasting the mech into scrap. Jacob managed to take the third one out by hurling a heavy piece of dock-loading equipment at it, crushing it. Wilson, for his part, had kept his head down and - presumably - spent the time holding his leg.

As Shepard gave the all-clear, however, Wilson pushed himself to his feet and began to amble as best he could towards the airlock at the end of the room. It was like the prospect of escape had energised him.

"Come on!" called Wilson, "Through here! We're almost at the shuttle!"

And yet the double door hissed open before Wilson got there. Someone was waiting for them.

Her long raven dark hair fell to her shoulders, her eyes were a piercing blue. She was incredibly beautiful, even if her face was contorted into a baleful sneer, and her black and white uniform did nothing to conceal her figure. It clearly wasn't something for the same battlefields that Jacob would find himself on, but they were obviously part of the same group.

She was Cerberus.

Wilson has paused mid-stride. The woman was armed.

Acting entirely on instincts honed by years of combat experience, Shepard went for his pistol.

A gunshot sounded before he could react. Wilson screamed and Shepard saw him crumple to the floor.

Miranda stepped up to Wilson, just past the threshold of the door. At the sight of her, the Cerberus technician spat up blood and stared at her, eyes shocked and incredulous. "Miranda? But you were...?"

Two more quick squeezes of the trigger and Wilson was silenced forever.

"Dead?" remarked Miranda Lawson with dry sarcasm. "Not quite."

_The voice on the radio._

"What the hell are you doing?!" Jacob demanded, jogging over. When he got there, his dark eyes alternated between staring at Miranda and staring at Wilson's body.

"My job," Miranda replied evenly as she holstered her weapon. "Wilson betrayed us."

"And now he's dead," Shepard put in, without emotion. He didn't race as Jacob did, just slowly walked over. The loss of a Cerberus member wasn't anything he would feel bad about, but one element of Miranda's sudden execution bothered him. "And we can't question him to find out if he was acting alone or as part of a wider group."

"He sabotaged the security system," Miranda responded, "Killed my staff and would have killed us if given the opportunity. It was too risky to let him live any longer."

"But we knew Wilson for years," Jacob said, brow furrowed. He didn't seem to be so sure about his companion's betrayal. "How do I know you're right about this? Jeez, do you really think Wilson was capable of sabotaging the entire project?"

Miranda spared a glance towards Wilson's body. "Not any more," she replied. She looked back to Jacob, "Besides, I'm never wrong, Jacob. I thought you knew that by now."

Their feuding could wait, Shepard decided. He cut in, "So, what's our next move?"

"We get on the shuttle and go," Miranda replied, unphased by Shepard's sudden intrusion into her conversation. "My boss wants to speak with you."

"Really? I find that hard to believe. I know you work for Cerberus."

Something flickered across Miranda's cool face then, perhaps disappointment. Her ice-blue eyes turned on Jacob. "Ah, Jacob. I should've known that your conscience would get the better of you."

"Lying to the Commander isn't the way to get him to join our cause."

"And we can't get him to join our cause if we're both dead. Well," Miranda said, with the bitterness of someone whose carefully wrought plans had been derailed, "Since we're getting everything out in the open, is there anything else you'd like to know, Commander?"

"No," Shepard replied, "I've had enough of this station to last a lifetime."

Miranda turned for the shuttle bay, giving Shepard a brief glimpse of the small, self-satisfied smile that spread across her face. "Oh, Commander, that you certainly have..."


	7. Chapter IV: Shades

**Chapter IV - Shades**

As it turned out, the shuttle was a fairly typical design. Squat and boxy from the outside with a set of powerful engines that seemed to take up a third of the craft, with a directional thruster mounted in each quadrant to give it an interesting blend of speed and manoeuvrability. Inside, the VI-piloted shuttle had enough capacity to easily sit a dozen Alliance marines in full combat gear, meaning that Shepard, Jacob and Miranda had more than enough space to enjoy the frosty atmosphere between them all.

However, on the positive side, Shepard found that the seats were quite comfortable.

They had cleared the station in moments and, with only the briefest touch of pressure upon his chest, Shepard felt the shuttle activate its faster-than-light drives and slip off on whatever course Miranda had instructed the ship to take. No one said anything. When staring blankly at Jacob had become too boring, Shepard had turned his head and busied himself with looking out of the viewing window to his right, at the glowing corona that marked FTL transit.

Everything Jacob had told him seemed too ridiculous to be true. The_ Normandy_ attacked, his crew scattered, the Alliance believing him to be dead. Cerberus had decided to lay it on a bit thick, Shepard thought. And yet here they were, taking him to meet with their leader. Shepard could only barely suppress the urge to smile as a vision of aiming his weapon at some nebulous figure, of him squeezing the trigger over and over again, circled around his head.

Miranda's clipped tones broke him out of his reverie.

"Commander, before you meet with the Illusive Man, we need to ask you a few questions to evaluate your condition."

Jacob glowered from the seat next to her. Something had annoyed him and Shepard couldn't decide if it was from their brief brawl on the station or whether he had gotten wise to Shepard's attempt to burn a hole through his forehead with his eyes. Shepard found himself not caring.

"Come on, Miranda," Jacob was saying. "More tests? Shepard took down all those mechs without trouble and, hell, he handed me a beatdown. Surely that's got to be good enough."

Miranda quirked a brow at Jacob. "The attack on the _Normandy_ was stressful to say the least and, combined with the shock of waking up in an unfamiliar location, it is important that we assess his condition. The Illusive Man needs to know that his memories and personality are intact. Ask the questions."

"I feel fine," Shepard replied.

"The sooner we start, the sooner we can be done. Start with personal history, move onto Alliance combat record afterwards, then enquire about the Eden Prime War."

"Is that what they're calling it now?" Shepard mused.

Jacob ignored it. He went right onto the questions, double checking them against information on his omni-tool. The cabin became awash in the orange glow.

"Commander John J. Shepard," Jacob said.

"Correct."

"Twelve years of service in the Systems Alliance military, last posting aboard the SSV _Normandy_."

"Correct."

"Records indicate that you were born on Mindoir and that, when you were sixteen, a number of Batarian slavers attacked the colony. You were the only survivor."

Shepard was aware that he was frowning. Something like Mindoir didn't leave you - the sound of gunfire, the hoarse screams of people being beaten, tortured and killed. The acrid stench of smoke and death as an entire colony was put to the torch. All over some territorial dispute because the Batarians felt that Mindoir was their world to claim. His entire family had been killed over some interstellar pissing contest.

"Two years later, you were able to enlist. In your first major assignment, you survived a Thresher Maw attack that wiped out your entire unit. Do you remember that?"

He remembered that. It still gave him nightmares. Seeing flesh and armour plate slough off a friend's bones in one hissing slurry wasn't something he would ever forget.

He remembered that Cerberus had orchestrated it.

"I remember something like that," Shepard said, his voice terse. "But the details don't fit with the official story."

"Commander," Miranda said, "Now is not the time to argue over past mistakes."

"I lost a lot of friends that day, Lawson, and I haven't forgotten them. Fifty Alliance marines died on that planet, someone needs to be held to account for that."

Miranda looked like she wanted to say something more but went silent. Jacob, unperturbed, went onto further questions.

Jacob asked about his early days in Alliance boot camps, he asked about his mentor, Admiral Kahoku. Jacob asked about his first assignments and his meeting with Captain Anderson before being assigned to the _Normandy_. He asked about Eden Prime, where everything had begun, and he asked about Saren, the rogue Spectre operative. He asked about Shepard's time as the first human Spectre and he asked about Shepard's crew - Garrus, Wrex, Tali, Kaidan, Ashley, Liara.

He didn't ask about the Reapers. Shepard didn't mention them.

Jacob turned to look at Miranda. "Satisfied?"

"Almost," Miranda replied, her voice icy. "Let's try something more recent."

And then she asked about Virmire.

"Virmire, where you destroyed Saren's cloning facility and operational headquarters, you had to leave one of your team behind. Who did you leave behind and why?"

If Mindoir and Akuze were two of three, then Virmire was the hat trick. Shepard felt something tighten behind his ribs and his lips compressed down into a thin line at the feeling. He remembered seeing the sunset with Ashley - Ash - and he remembered telling her that there would be no heroics, that everyone would come home alive. Ashley had said she would see him on the other side.

Shepard wondered if she knew how correct she had been when a twenty kiloton nuclear weapon had annihilated the facility and everyone in it. After all, Ashley had always had a thing for poetry.

"Ashley Williams," Shepard said. "The bomb had to go off. I left a friend behind to die that day, in order to save everyone else. In order to stop Saren. Ash gave her life for the rest of the squad, for the salarians she had only met a few hours before. She died a hero."

Jacob broke in before Miranda could respond. "I understand, Commander, and we weren't judging your decision. Everybody at Cerberus knows that the cloning facility had to be destroyed."

Shepard noted the interesting use of _I_, _we_ and _everybody_. Perhaps everyone at Cerberus, even these two sitting before him, wasn't on the same page.

Miranda, however, had one more question.

"Commander, think back to the Citadel, after the Alliance saved the _Destiny Ascension_ and you stopped Saren. What happened next?"

"Many things."

"Politically."

"The Alliance was offered a spot on the Citadel Council. Both Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina were recommended."

"Yes, Captain Anderson is now Councillor Anderson," Miranda said, like a school teacher congratulating a student. "Though, from what I hear, he preferred life in the military."

Something about that was strange to Shepard. He must've been unconscious for some time. As far as he knew, no one had been selected for the position yet.

"Still," Jacob said, "It's good to know that the human Council member won't put politics ahead of defence."

"Your memory seems solid," Miranda continued, "But there really are other tests we should run-"

Jacob sighed. "Come on, Miranda. Enough with the tests. The memories are there and I can vouch for Shepard's combat skills personally."

"You certainly can," Shepard remarked. Miranda looked between the two.

"I suppose you're right," she said at last. "We will just have to hope that the Illusive Man accepts our little field test as evidence enough."

And, as if on cue, the shuttle shuddered as it dropped out of faster-than-light transit. Outside, a gargantuan space station loomed with starships - cruisers, some of them seemed like - hanging around like silent, still guardians. This was it, Shepard thought, the eye of the storm.

And Cerberus was welcoming him with open arms.

* * *

This Cerberus station wasn't too different to the previous one, Shepard found.

The station was nothing like an Alliance installation. Alliance stations were rather spartan with a grey and blue aesthetic that only barely reached the bare minimum to be pleasing to the eye. They were cramped, too, with barely two or three people being able to pass each other in a corridor. Ever since the First Contact War with the Turian Hierarchy, the Systems Alliance had designed its weapons and tools of war with as much practical consideration as possible. Stumbling onto the galactic stage by stumbling into a war against the most powerful military in the known galaxy had a way of doing that.

The Cerberus base, however, was more like walking into a mansion. It was all silver and glass, with small decorative gardens and potted plants. Where Shepard found himself wasn't a meeting room, it was a courtyard. A space like this would be seen as inefficient on any other warship - hell, on anywhere except the Citadel itself. Whoever had built this station evidently either didn't care for practicality or they had a lot of money to throw around. Perhaps both.

And it was utterly desolate, too, despite the grandiose flair. Miranda and Jacob were Shepard's only companions and the two paused and stopped before a long set of stairs that terminated at a heavy double door.

Miranda was saying what Shepard had already assumed: "The Illusive Man is waiting for you in the other room."

Shepard tried to avoid taking the steps two at a time. It wouldn't do good to appear eager.

The doors hissed open and Commander Shepard stepped out into darkness.

Shepard might have expected to see many things inside Cerberus' headquarters. What he didn't expect to see, however, was a middle-aged man in an expensive suit lighting up a cigarette. The figure flicked a switch and the darkness resolved into a starfield and a blazing sun, dimmed so Shepard could see every pattern in the star's corona, that burned around the man like a halo. The man exhaled and the smoke from his cigarette hung in the air like a ghostly nebula.

"Ah, Commander Shepard," said the head of Cerberus, "I've been expecting you."


End file.
